Guide to Buying an Integrated Home Sound System

One of the most common problems that people tend to encounter when they want their own home theater system with its own integrated home sound system is lack of space. Let’s face it – not all homes have enough space to fit in a gigantic TV screen with an equally humongous speaker setup, not to mention the comfy seating (which is crucial to the home cinema experience.)

The Solution: an Integrated Home Sound System

The solution the predicament is to get an integrated home sound system, which allows you to save on space that would normally go to bulky speakers and messy wires. All without sacrificing the booming, crystal clear surround sound that people associate with the cinema experience.

Most aficionados refer to this as a home theater in a box (or HtiB), simply because it is a single device that already contains everything you need for the A/V part of a home theater system, including:

All the speakers needed to have at least five channels of audio (L, R, front, two surround, and one center)

The amplifier for the speakers

A central controller or switch for all the video sources, including video player, video recorder, HTPC, etc.

The price of an HTiB will vary, because like many technological devices – the manufacturers tend to cater to different market segments depending on budget. You can get cheap ones or high end models, but the price will almost always correlate to the quality and durability.

Choosing Your Integrated Home Sound System

If you don’t want to waste money on the wrong system, you need to consider a few things while choosing the devices:

Think of the Speakers First

The speakers are the single most important part when it comes to sound quality, and fortunately sound quality is also one of the easier things to test. You can ask to listen to the speakers at the store first, before you commit to buying.

Don’t worry about ideal listening scenarios. A busy shop with with customers and staff miling about is a great stress test for the quality. If the speaker system you are eyeing is bad, you’ll know (or hear) it even with all the background noise. On the other hand, you should be suspicious of speakers that require absolute silence from the surroundings just to shine.

Go Digital

There will always be analog purists, but when it comes to the modern cinematic experience, you will want to go digital in order to take advantage of modern sound and video formats. Don’t bother with things that don’t at least support Dolby digital decoding.

Go in with a Plan

Make sure that before procurement of the different parts and components, you already have at least a rough plan for the system. Everything from the length of wiring, size of the device, to even the numbers and size of inputs and outputs should be consider. Having to run back and forth to the store because of incompatibility or logistics issues can be tedious and expensive. That’s not to mention the cost if you always have to buy different adapters every time you need to accommodate an incompatible component.

Let the Professionals Do It

Sometimes people forget that a home theater system is meant for entertainment. It wouldn’t do you much good if the procurement and installation of the system sours you off on the whole deal. Instead, you can hire professionals like Digital Integration and let them do all the dirty work. They’ll do it fast and with the right components so that all you need to do is sit back and wait a little bit before you get to enjoy the full home cinematic experience. Contact them today and get a FREE consultation.